NVIDIA have released a new beta driver for its GeForce cards, 306.02, which adds ambient occlusion to the newly released Guild Wars 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, as well as Star Wars: The Old Republic. Diablo 3 receives an anti-aliasing option and the driver also increases performance in games like Battlefield 3 and Shogun 2.

More details below this short interval.

NVIDIA have been quick off the mark getting this beta driver out the door, considering Guild Wars has only been released to pre-orderers so far.

Ambient occlusion is, of course, a lovely addition to any game but it's the performance boost that should be behind your download of this new beta. It will only affect certain cards, but the GeForce GTX 560 will gain a 5% performance boost in Battlefield 3, if it's running in SLI. However, the biggest gain, by a long way, is the GTX 680, which gets a huge 40% bump when running Shogun 2.

The full patch notes are fairly hefty, so it's best to view them here. And to get the beta patch you best head over to NVIDIA's download page.